


Heal Me Where I Lay

by bruvebanner



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: Baby-Agent Clint, Because who doesn't love doctor Bruce?, Brian Banner was a dick, Bruce Feels, Clint is a Redshirt, Deaf Clint, Deep in the slums, Doctor Bruce, Fluff, Harold Barton was a dick, Hinduism, Hurt/Comfort, India!, Like, Lots of Bruce Banner feels, M/M, ME - Freeform, Mentions of Suicide, Oh, Past Child Abuse, Past Substance Abuse, Pre-Avengers (2012), Recreational Drug Use, SHIELD is shit at taking care of their agents, SO, Swear Words, There will be fluff, and Bruce is a stoner so, and it will be fluffy, because baby!bruce is religious to cope okay, dads are just jerks okay?, lemme tell you, ohhey guess who fucking curses alot?, suddenly remembered as well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-14 01:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1246801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bruvebanner/pseuds/bruvebanner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton--AKA, Agent Hawkeye of SHIELD--is a year into his recruitment at SHIELD, and they've finally trusted him with a solo mission. No coms, no extraction team--Clint's on his own. So, when the hit, which was only meant to be a quick in and out kill, turns south faster than a broken compass, Clint is left to defend himself in a foreign country. With no escape.<br/>But when all seems lost and death seems to finally have managed a hold on the Greatest Archer in the World, a strange Doctor appears to save him, a Doctor with lots of freckles and a sweet smile.<br/>Still, no matter how gentle and put together this calm Doctor seems, Clint's not blind to the scars on his wrists and the fear in his eyes whenever someone knocks on the door.<br/>He's a puzzle, and Clint was never good at letting unsolved puzzles lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hawkeye, You Dummy

Solo mission in India, they said. It’ll be quick and easy, in and out, they said. Extraction team, what extraction team? You’ll be fine, no need for any coms, any back up! An experienced guy like you’ll be alright without us!

Fucking liars.

It was just one hit. Some higher up who was trying to sell nukes to the Russians, maybe the Middle East, too? Clint didn’t really know, and he didn’t really care. All he knew was that he had a picture with a name scrawled on it and a designated point and time to shoot some guy through the eye.

How it had all gone to hell like this was beyond him.

Guns were firing after him, so many guns, and all he had was a silenced pistol on his hip, a goddamn bow in his hand, and a ragged bullet wound in his shoulder sputtering blood across his back, which was all fine and dandy, pretty manageable even, when you weren’t _running for your life_. It was nearly pitch-black and his booted feet were scrapping across gravel and dirt, slick from rain, because that was Clint’s luck, the luck that it had been raining for two days straight, it was the middle of the damn night, and someone had managed to leak Intel to this dirtbag, Intel that he had a big, fat target smacked across his forehead and instead of showing up and just _dying_ , like people like him were _supposed to do_ , he’d sent in his lackeys, goons with guns to chase Clint down through the worst slums in India and shoot him full of holes. Big, red, blooming holes, and they’d gotten him a good one because he couldn’t even shoot his _goddamn bow_ now.

Good thing Clint wasn’t just some stupid SHIELD redshirt—he was Hawkeye, one of their best assassins, and he wasn’t about to die at the hands of the underpaid hit men of some guy whose name he couldn’t even fucking properly pronounce.

They’d ambushed him in an abandoned warehouse—because wasn’t that where it always happened? Some dilapidated building a good stones throw from where his hit was meant to arrive, and they’d ambushed him while he’d been waiting, hearing-aids off, so he could focus, zone-out and let the world fade, pinpoint every movement in the night sprawling out in front of him. Fucking brilliant move on his part. Clint, of course, hadn’t _completely_ made an ass of himself—he’d gotten a few good hits in before he realized there were too many of them and his target wasn’t coming. Still hadn’t managed to jump out the window before they’d shot him in the back, though. 

Thrown into the rain by the impact, face first into a conveniently—and disgustingly—laid pile of trash ten feet below the window, Clint could only roll to his feet, take a breath, and run like hell, bleeding like a stuck pig. And so he ran, for what felt like miles, through the slums, soaked to the bone, soaked in his own blood and soaked in the rain. The roads were narrow, most of the buildings more of sham lean-to’s than anything else, closing in on both sides, doorways covered by sheets, broken off sheets of plywood, or left wide open, pouring out guttering light from lit fires, dirty faces peeking out in abject apprehension as Clint pelted past, mud splattering under his boots, rain flinging from his pumping arms. There was nowhere for him to get higher, no footholds to get to the rooftops, no upper hand, because the people with the guns, they knew their way around, knew the lean and flow of the muddy roads, knew the language fluidly and the people just as well.

Clint did not.

More gun fire, ringing in his ears, static in his hearing aids as he ducked and dodged, cutting a quick right down another alley, skittering as he lost his footing for half a second at the loss of traction, hands scrapping the ground, palms slicing on wet, broken glass bottles, bow smearing with mud as he righted himself and kept going, because that half a second could mean his life, and he swore he could feel the idiots breathing down his back as he ran, and he was just lucky they couldn’t see in the dark like him, especially with pelting rain slashing through the air and into their faces, couldn’t get off a good shot in the night like he’d have been able to if he could just turn and shoot.

Shots glanced off the walls around him, like flash bangs in the dark, like thunder and lightning cracking down all around him, and Clint tossed a look over his shoulder—so many men tailing him, way too many, six, seven, eight, then more twisting around the corner, and he turned his face forward once more, sprinting like he had a pack of wolves chomping at his heels, because no matter the fact he had nowhere to go to escape, he was still going to fucking _get there_. He’d get his ass across the Himalayas if he had to.

_‘Coulson’ll have my hide if I die like this,’_ was all he could think in his frantic head as he turned another corner, full tilt, tossing another glance over his shoulder as he went, something like fear heavy in his stomach—and crashed headlong into a broad chest, and a pair of arms grabbed him roughly.

Pain flared across his shoulder, the bullet wound still pouring warm blood down his back as he was shaken and grappled about. Thrashing roughly, his forehead connected with his captor’s nose, blood and rainwater splattering both of them, and for just a moment Clint was free, bow discarded to the side and pistol in hand, swift, silent bullet sent into the hitman’s leg, putting him down; and Clint was ready for the fight he knew he was about to be in, unable to keep running with two more men advancing at his front, hot adrenaline rushing in his gut, mixing with dread, because _‘shit, shit, these guys shouldn’t be this smart, they shouldn’t have cut me off, they should be_ behind me, _because underpaid lackeys are fucking idiots!’_

And then the men behind him had caught up, and the two others who’d come to cut him off were on him, and then…Then it was the most pathetic takedown Clint had ever had.

A shot to the leg put one more man down before they had hands grappling for Clint, yanking his wrist to the side, gun clattering away, and he started throwing fists like mad, like he was in the middle of a carney fight, like he still had Band-Aids across a broken nose and tape across his knuckles, scrappin’ like only a real Carney-boy can.

In the midst of swarming bodies and thudding fists Clint took a sudden elbow to the eye and, for the split second it took him to shake off the black-spots filtering his vision, hands were on him again, grabbing his arms, trying to pin him. Thunder clapped overhead, lightning alighting the scene—master assassin, blond and bloodied at the center of a hoard of rough-faced vagabonds, face screwed up in consternation, teeth clenched and blue eyes bruised. He kicked like a mule, and bit even harder, struggling as fists pummeled his stomach, as fingers ground into his bullet wound, blunt nails biting into the exposed flesh of his arms. Clint took hard hits to the face, splitting his lips, bursts of his own blood splattering his face, dripping from his nose in gushes down his chin. He could taste bitter copper on his tongue, but maybe he’d just bitten his tongue amidst the violence; who knew?

You could suppose the beating was payback—Clint _had_ shot at least three of their guys in the legs. (He hadn’t killed them, but, hey, no fucking thanks for that, was there?) You could say they didn’t take too kindly to their men getting shot in the legs. (Still not dead, but, hey, whatever.) But, no matter how pissed they seemed for having had to chase him down, the payback didn’t last long—they were getting paid, after all, and needed to report back to their head honcho. _‘Yeah, that guy you wanted killed? Shot him dead in an alley because he was an_ idiot.’ 

They paused in their pummeling then, someone barking an order, though Clint’s linguistic skills were certainly not on par enough to know what was said, and then they were still, standing faceless and voiceless, puffing angry breaths around Clint as blood mingling with rain dripped from his parted, panting lips, teeth smeared red. His body shuddered with each breath—spots grew, black and wide, across his vision—the pain at his shoulder did not so much dull as began to fade, as though he were disconnecting from the pain, floating away from his body. Going into shock, his mind supplied. Going to die from blood loss, something that sounded suspiciously like Coulson supplied in his head.

Not that Clint actually thought he’d die—no one could ever say Agent Hawkeye wasn’t the biggest optimist you’d ever meet when it came to dangerous missions and survival rates. He’d survived the brink of death, what, four times in the last year? His entire assassin career was longer than most of the desk assistants at SHIELD. He’d be fine. He may have a bullet wound, but at least it was only one. He may have been on his own, but it wasn’t like he’d ever liked partners on missions anyways. He may have been slowly turning black and blue all over, but, hey, he hadn’t broken any bones yet, and his nose didn’t feel crooked. He’d be f—

_Fucking dead_. The sound of a gun going off in that sudden silence registered only vaguely in Clint’s deaf ears, hardly audible over the rushing of blood in his head, the static of the hearing aids ratcheting up a notch; and that didn’t even compare to the deafening scream of the _agony_ blooming from his stomach on out, spreading like venom in his veins throughout his limbs, pain in his gut that had him down on his knees, a low, keening noise growing in the back of his throat, and they let him go, let him fall to his knees, mud splattering across his legs, arms coming to wrap around his midsection, feel the slippery ooze of his own life pouring out from between his suddenly frozen, frigid limbs.

They didn’t linger over him; one man gave an angry kick to Clint’s shoulder, and he was on his side, sprawled now, and the pain was intense, horrifying, but it wasn’t like he was feeling it himself; it was like he was watching someone else scream in pain from miles away. He writhed, side of his face pressed into the mud, one hand grasping at his midsection, teeth grinding as he watched the group walk off, walk away as though he weren’t ebbing into nothing at their feet, as though the rain wasn’t freezing him solid while the fire in his stomach poured out over his arms and soaked into the ground below him.

They walked away as though Clint wasn’t dying, and he grasped for something to hold onto, calling hoarsely in a voice coated in coughed blood and panic, for some miracle, something to save him, but no one was coming, no one was going to save him, and his vision was tunneling, black encroaching on the edges, swallowing the last thing he had, swallowing his vision, consuming him as he locked onto the last thing he could see, the last thing that stood out in those final moments:

Something glinting in the night, light from the moon peeking through the clouds, maybe, shining on glass, or metal, and it moved closer, swiftly coming towards Clint, something shiny leaning over him, and then it was two frames of glass, perched on a nose, hiding eyes behind their reflection of an archer laying blind and dying on the ground, and freckles—a sea of freckles like the stars Clint couldn’t see behind the clouds, dark stars across a pale sky of ivory, and suddenly he was drowning, sucking on useless air as he drowned in a sea of freckles that were suddenly the only thing he could see.

And then, he could not see to see, the stars were gone, and so was the pain.


	2. Doctor Fluffy Freckle Bear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, so, I won't go into much detail, but this was supposed to be posted a week ago, but there was a fiasco with a flash drive deleting my work, and I can't edit this anymore, so if it's horrible I truly apologize, next chapter will be far more interesting and far less dumb.

Floating disconnected from a body made of brittle glass and rusted metal, wrapped tight in barbed-wire—one would be considered lucky they could not feel the pain; Clint was so distant he could neither appreciate his numbness, nor even fear the idea that this might be his death. It was silent, so silent as he drifted far off from his physical form; as silent as the First Day, the day his mother stopped speaking, moving her lips without sound, opening her mouth wider, wider, and wider still, until she must have been screaming, but he still couldn’t hear her, still couldn’t hear a damn thing—and it was dark away from his body as well; not like the darkness of night, but something more sinister—this dark was a curling, twining, endless darkness, like so much black ink of the void. 

There was nothing where he floated, not even himself—words were lost, thoughts inconceivable—there was no _being_ ; it was all an abstract, vague sort of idea, something he had no cognitive awareness available to think on. There was nothing, and so he was nothing.

There was no way of knowing how much time had gone by—had it been minutes, seconds, _hours_ , since this man had been left, ebbing lifeless on the muddy ground of an alley-way? Days? Years? There was no way of knowing.

The first sentience that came to this drifting, dying body, was a sensation—gentle, soft, like the brush of a feather, the touch of a butterflies wings; it whispered across sensitive flesh, nowhere in particular, just somewhere to be felt, reaching through the darkness, the silent, numbing darkness, and kissing him aware. It became a grounding center, something for him to grab hold of—grab hold of and _pull_.

The first few drops of sensation—the feeling of cool air across skin, of the touch of a hand across the forehead—were like raindrops, pitter-pattering over the expanse of his mind, piano keys stroked into small, strumming sound along his cognizance. But as his mind began to come to speed, as he became aware of the air being dragged into his lungs, the staccato of his heart in his chest, stuttering and small, the feeling of fingers at his hair-line, the shift of his muscles as he moved…he also became aware of the pain—like sudden red-bursts of agony blooming across his shoulder and stomach, jagged lines of epileptic-fit-inducing strobes, red hot fire brimming across his body—and the air dragged into his lungs was forced out as though it were steam from a tea-kettle, high-pitched and deafingly agonized, though he still heard nothing. He merely felt his own throat rub raw.

Through that sudden burn, forcing out everything, obscuring thought and reason, a small, imperceptible pin-prick forced its way into the junction between his neck and shoulder, and within seconds a wave of ice-water doused the flames, once more lulling Clint into the silent oasis of black, impenetrable sleep.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clint stayed in a fitful, half-lucid slumber, plagued by fever and nightmares, for three days and four nights. Coated in sweat as his body struggled to fight off the slow-growing infection, his hands became claws, digging into sheets—his teeth ground together viciously as his muscles cramped, dehydrated and weak—his body twisted and writhed like a beheaded serpent as the itching burn of the infection ravaged his limbs. When he would become aware, hazy and disoriented, he would fight demons, tooth and nail, grapple with cruel, hissing creatures that smelled of gin and tonic, with grey eyes burning in sunken-in sockets. And with each unconscious movement he would reopen his wounds, scratching inflamed flesh across rough bandages, pulling at carefully lain stitches, bruising elbows and shins as he kicked and flailed. And each time, when he could no longer find the will to fight, when his body had no strength left to struggle, he would lie back, panting and whimpering like a maimed fawn, mewling for relief from the hurt, relief from the monsters, and weep.

But Clint was not alone in his pain and fear. Each time he would rend his wounds open once more, no matter the hour of day, when he would writhe and cry out in his feverish nightmare, or bellow in confused rage, there would always be a pair of soft, gentle hands to right him once more—nimble fingers to re-stitch that of which he had torn, to rewrap bloody wounds in fresh, white bandages; a cold cloth ever present to wipe away the perspiration on his brow and chase away the heat of the fever on his skin; a bowl of warm broth there to press against his broken lips, quenching the desert that was his tongue, sating the growing hunger in his belly. The hands were careful, as though handling fine china, as they nursed the wounded archer back to life; even when he flung out his arms, amidst a fight with that grey-eyed demon, those hands never pushed, never grew impatient. They left no marks on his tender flesh.

In the early hours of the fourth night, after three long days of fighting for his own life, Clint’s fever broke, the taint purged from his body by so much morphine and antiseptic, enough so that, if he were cut, he might have actually bled the stuff. His wounds were rewrapped one last time, before those ever-patient hands left, allowing him to sleep off the drug’s effects in peace. Clint did not wake until the early hours of dawn the next day.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was through a haze of drugs and blood loss that Clint was able to finally wakeup, this time without the burning twist and pull of his own flesh being torn from his bones, or whatever other horrible things he’d been _sure_ had been going on while he slept. He was lucky, you could suppose, that when he woke up now, it was with a far clearer head. There were no hazy nightmares; no disembodied faces blurred in front his eyes; no Coulson standing scoldingly over him, nor a Maria Hill mocking him for managing to get himself killed; no pair of ownerless hands smoothing hair off of his forehead as he died. There were no demons shaking him, clawing for his throat, no meaningless array of pale stars back dropped on a sky of white-hot fever. There was also no burning deep in the pit of his stomach, though he could feel the telltale ache slowly seeping into his bones once more. No, Clint was finally lucid _(okay, a bit of a lie—more on the ‘awake enough to piss and roll over’ side, but_ thinking _clearly might have been a bit difficult)_ and so he decided now was the time to figure out where the fuck he was before whoever was holding him realized their blond archer had popped his top and finally managed to wake up from his hangover.  
His hearing aids must have been busted—maybe the batteries had gone screwy when that cranberry fuck-nut had knocked Clint’s head in?—because he still couldn’t hear, even when he strained his useless ears. Now, Clint hadn’t ever been completely deaf; he’d always been able to hear if someone shouted loud enough, or maybe if a train passed by. Hey, if he _really_ strained without the hearing aids, sometimes he could almost hear his own voice, too, which he thought was awesome. But, right then and there, Clint didn’t hear a damn thing; no feedback from his hearing aid, no footsteps, not even the sound of his own breathing. 

It was a little aggravating, to say the least _(fucking freaky to be completely honest)_ ; Clint had had hearing aids for over two years now _(thank you, mercenary bosses who didn’t want their workers going in deaf)_ , so he was out of practice in orienting himself without his ears. He’d rough it out, though—he’d dealt with worse circumstances, to give the grandest understatement ever.

He was careful as he tried for feeling next—shifting his fingers, brushing the palm of his right hand over what must have been a cloth cot beneath him, some soft _(silk maybe)_ , some rough _(beaded?)_ ; but when he tried to use his left hand, he found he couldn’t move his arm, cast in a sling across his chest, and his hand was wrapped tight in something; when he tried to wiggle his fingers he felt a firm burn build up in his palm. Felt like he had it stitched up, though he couldn’t remember slicing his palm to hell. _(You can’t really be expected to remember shit like that when running for your life, right?)_

He wasn’t restrained, at least; he carefully started shifted his ankles, rotating his right wrist in slow circles—no straps held him to his cot. Which was either completely awesome…or very, very bad. 

Good and it might’ve been an ally holding him; no need to restrain him—let him fall his ass right outta the cot, who gave a crap—that kinda ally. Maybe SHIELD had just been kidding about letting him go on a mission unmonitored; maybe they _hadn’t_ let one of their best hitmen wander off into foreign, hostile territory without a handler, just to make a tit of himself, and had actually been sitting back, watching him through a TV monitor, hot coffee in hand as they yucked it up, laughing at his carney ass sitting in the rain waiting for a hit, a tool who thought he was good enough to go it alone, when clearly he was a fucking pickled-punk show. Maybe they actually gave a damn about whether or not he died, bleeding out in the middle of an alley. Or maybe it was just a hospital, some good Samaritan saving his dumb ass? That seemed more likely.

The bad option? It would be an enemy holding him in a locked chamber, knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to get out if he tried. And that, now that would have been bad. Because finding a SHIELD agent like him, someone who’d dragged his way up, from an expendable field agent to a top assassin, in under a year, a guy like him, who knew the entire organization inside and out, was a hot piece of ass to come by for some nasty, undercover organizations, shadier and more underground than SHIELD itself. And Clint wasn’t Coulson—he was useless when it came to torture. He would be completely at their mercy, unable to ‘disconnect himself from the pain’, or whatever the fuck it was Coulson liked to say he did when he was tortured. _(But Clint was pretty sure Coulson was a robot, so there was also that.)_

Clint preferred the option where he wouldn’t be crying for mommy twenty minutes into the first greeting, and he was pretty sure regular old hospitals didn’t regulate torture, so… 

Realizing he had literally no other option, and not interested in sitting around and twiddling his thumbs until either A) his buxom nurse came swooping in to kiss him all better, or B) his dashing interrogator came in to wake him up with gentle slaps to the face, Clint fluttered his lashes, slowly opening his eyes, squinting in the low-light and sliding his gaze wearily about.

At first all he saw was a water-stained ceiling and a moth fluttering around and around the glow of a single light-bulb, swinging slowly back and forth; Clint followed the movement of the moth with his eyes as he slowly focused his sharp gaze—his eyes felt mucky, hazed from disuse, and he waited until he was confident it was once more up to par _(that moth’s wings were grey, but was also diffused with different shades of brown and beige near the junction of its wings and its back)_ before he looked anywhere else.

Once he allowed himself to get out of his sniper-eyes zone, Clint noticed what seemed to be paper stencils of odd, squiggled symbols hanging down from the ceiling as well. Clint followed the colourful lines of the symbols, but couldn’t figure out what these drawings might have meant, though he wasn’t entirely sure if it was the morphine churning in his system or his lack of cultural know-how. _(It wasn’t like he studied this shit before he went out to kill someone—it was a pretty dumbed-down job for anybody, and Clint was a newbie redshirt, for Christ sakes.)_

Clint couldn’t stay focused on one anomaly for long, though; when he caught the movement, he followed the fluttering of the grey moths wings as it flew to land against the wall to his left, where a pile of similar papers lay, though some held other drawings, even more bizarre symbols and animals and stick people scrawled on those same sheaf’s of paper, stacked in erratic piles , like Clint’s quarters back at SHIELD when Coulson was being a dick and gave him mile long stacks of paperwork.

When Clint finally managed to peel his gaze away from the fuzzy ends of the moths wings, and the squiggly lines of colourful drawings, he noticed the rest of the might as well have been a dirtier version of his own place, for how Spartan-y and slightly peculiar it looked; the single light flickered shadows across dull, yellowing walls, tarnished, but partially covered with those same fluttery scraps of paper, flowers and butterflies in brightly coloured crayon; there was a single window, covered by greying, tattered, moth-eaten sheets, blocking out the dark of the night, if only enough to keep the world from seeing in. _(Clint wondered how long he’d been here, seeing how he’d been shot dead in the middle of the night, and how it was_ still _night…He was guessing it was a while.)_ There was a desk underneath the window, scattered with papers and toothpick figures, pencils and markers, a wrench and a screwdriver, weird little plastic baubles and something that was blinking between green and red to some odd beat—there might have even been a laptop hidden underneath all of that mess, but Clint couldn’t tell for sure, obscured as it was underneath all that crap.

There wasn’t much else to the room—a cabinet with a deadbolt, sitting on the opposite end of the room from the desk, dented and rusty; a small bed with a threadbare blanket _(one of its pillows sitting comfortably underneath Clint’s head)_ , a bedside table with bandages rolled up on top, a needle and thread floating in what might have been a small glass of antiseptic, and a single door, closed off from what must have been an adjoining room by nothing more than gleaming purple beads hanging from the frame.

Clint moved his gaze down, away from the scattered clutter of the room, to follow the line of his own body, stripped down to the waist, sun-kissed skin laid out, etherized atop a blanketed cot, stark white bandages wrapped about one shoulder and across his abdomen. One fiery line of red bloomed at the center of his bandaged stomach. He could feel it then, the feeling returning as he woke up more and more. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle for right now, so he’d be fine. Even if it made him slow as a dead pack-mule, Clint was glad _(as a buzzard in the middle of a meat-packing factory)_ he’d been drugged, because, otherwise, he was sure he’d have been _completely_ useless. Like, _I’m-up-to-my-eyeballs-in-pain-please-shoot-me_ kind of useless.

Clint carefully lifted his hand to assess the rest of the damage, because he knew it couldn’t have _just_ been a couple of bullet wounds. His left arm was in a white, makeshift sling, medically taped to lower his mobility, and his right arm was covered in little white Band-Aids, to cover an array shallow slices. Clint thought the rest of his lower body looked like an abstract work of art, some bullshit rich-ass aristocrats would buy in some prissy art gallery, coloured in fifty shades of black and blue, and an ugly, healthy colour of yellow tinting the edges of his bruises. His face probably wasn’t in the best shape, either, if the thick bandage over his right brow and the bridge of his nose was anything to go by, though he had no way to see if his beautiful features had been completely destroyed. _(If Clint had a rearranged face because of this bullshit, he was going to be livid. His face was a work of fucking art, dammit.)_ He could feel the twinge of pain every time he blinked, two rings beneath his blue eyes, dark bruises from the elbow he’d taken to the nose. His lips were cracked, and one scab began to trickle blood as he probed it thoughtfully with his tongue. But there was no swelling, and it was all a pretty manageable level of pain; that would’ve been a good thing, too, if it hadn’t hinted at the time he’d been stuck in this cot. 

Yellowing bruises meant he’d been here, unconscious, for days. He’d been drugged, left helpless, in the hands of some stranger, _for days_ , and that thought did _not_ give him the warm fuzzies. 

Feeling restless and slightly paranoid, Clint scrunched up his face, running through his options; if he staid any longer, _someone_ would show up, and just because he was breathing and well-tended didn’t mean he shouldn’t worry. This was still foreign terrain, he was still a SHIELD agent in the middle of a country SHIELD wasn’t _technically_ allowed to meddle in, and, wounded or not, he needed to move his ass outta there. He hadn’t even seen the person holding him yet—for all he knew, this quaint, quirky little home in the slums could be a front for whatever hostile entity had him in its clutches. Make him think it was a Good Samaritan, heal him up, make him pliable, and then _tear his ass down_ , drag him kicking and screaming into an interrogation room and watch him beg for mercy, spilling out all of SHIELDS secrets as his guts spilled out in tandem. 

So, Clint was very motivated to get out of there, what with the thought of impending torture suddenly at the forefront of his mind again, and had no problem with the idea of dragging his useless ass across the floor with one arm if push came to shove. _(And besides, how hard could it be to get out of here on his own? He’d been run through with a sword before, hit by a truck, even fallen out of a ten-story window, and had dragged himself a good distance every time—it wasn’t like an already tended bullet wound was all that bad in comparison, right?)_

Clint’s muscles felt weak and underused; when he propped his good elbow at his side, readying himself to move, he felt it quiver, and he glared at his arm, like it had personally offended him with the slip-up. His arms were his pride and fucking joy—they were not allowed to be _weak_. Clint wasted no time after that, though; he took a deep, steading breath, mentally preparing himself for any discomfort, and _pushed_ —

—and as soon as he managed a half-way sitting position, felt his stomach revolt like the French-fucking-Revolution, muscles cramping, wound rubbing across the bandages, and his head spun with the sudden rush of it all; he fell onto his back once more, head thudding to his pillow, hand clawed as it reached for his center, trying to fend off the none-existent creature that _had_ to have been gutting him; that grey-eyed demon disemboweling him then and there, on that cot, digging its nails in deep and _yanking._

A sweat broke out across Clint’s brow and he clamped his eyes shut against the flare-lens frying his retina’s, gritting his teeth, mind blooming black and hazy at the edges; drugs still pumped through his veins, but they did nothing for the hellfire burning at his in his gut. He twisted, irritating the wound in his shoulder in his haste, focused on the abrupt agony, trying to think of how to alleviate the aching, reduce it to something manageable, something he could breathe through. While he struggled, tears burned behind his closed eyelids, and a low, growling moan ground its way out from between his teeth; if he’d had his ears, maybe he’d have clamped down on the desperate sound, tried to calm himself before he caught anyone’s notice. Seeing how that wasn’t an option now, his unbidden groans grew louder, and attracted the attention of those disembodied hands, ever eager to help. 

Clint didn’t notice. 

Not until a cool cloth was being pressed to his forehead, and a hand was circling his wrist carefully, pulling it away from the slow growing stain of red spreading across his bandages; gently, but firmly, it kept him from clawing at the flaming flesh. 

Now Clint noticed. And then it wasn’t Clint anymore.

As soon as those hands were on him, Hawkeye’s eyes flew open, fast as lightning, and he startled forward, ignoring the fact that sitting up was a _bad fucking idea_ , ignoring the pain, unfeeling as he nearly popped a stitch, twisting his legs over the side of his cot and yanking out of that feeble grip, bringing his hand up to protect his face, good shoulder turned forward, head ducked, awaiting blows, as his training finally kicked in— _‘Someone’s touching me, an enemy in close, too fucking close proximity; follow protocol 4-0-N, ignore injuries, assess enemy weaknesses, exploit weaknesses, kill enemy at all costs, head for nearest exit, find somewhere to hide—run—hide—run—hide— **run!’**_ —there was no other thought, no outside reasoning amidst the drowning panic; there was just Hawkeye, Coulson’s voice over an ear-piece, a weapon that needed to be obtained, and a target to be taken out. 

_(Now, while Clint flipped his top and planned on murdering the guy who’d saved his ass, said potential murder victim was talking, slightly panicked as he did, hands held up in surrender, no longer touching this hostile patient, just trying to tell him ‘hey, no, wait, I’m the_ good _guy’.)_

Clint heard none of it because, again, _his fucking hearing aids were busted_ and he only knew he had to get out, get out before they finished him off, or dragged him to an interrogation room, tortured him for information he’d rather die than reveal because _why else would they keep him alive?_ They—they must have been one of those faceless organizations Coulson had warned him about—fucking _warned_ him, told him to watch his ass, keep his head low, get his fucking _job_ done, and instead he was going to have to fight his way out or die trying with a pair of _holes in him_ , because he was an idiot, an absolute idiot!

All of this panic happened in the span of only a few short seconds. Now Clint had to get in motion, fist curling, body tensing, adrenaline rushing as he narrowed his gaze, zoned out everything else and locked on to those hands, turned palm up toward him, and moved up to the wrists, thin, scarred, and pale veined. Like twigs if put to Clint’s strength.

But before Clint could break those wrists, snap them like sticks in his grasp and frantically fling himself at what he saw as his aggressor in his need for escape, he finally lifted his head, face curled in a snarl, pupils blown wide, iris’ slivers of slate-grey terror, and took in what he’d moments before deemed as a _close and deadly danger._

This guy looked like the human version of a fucking teddy bear. Soft, brown curls tumbled across his forehead, greying slightly at the temples; a bulky pair of round, wire-rimmed glasses sat askew on the tip of his nose, glinting in the low light; freckles splattered across his cheeks in a great mess of pale stars, so many freckles, and Clint could’ve sworn he’d seen those freckles before, seen those _stars_ across a similar canvas of white; and his eyes, good god this guy’s eyes. They were huge fucking saucers, a pair of brown doe-eyes framed by long brown lashes, and they were staring at Clint beseechingly, slightly frightened, as his lips formed words carefully and slowly, like he was realizing Clint wasn’t hearing a word of it, things like, _‘helping’_ and _‘be careful’_ and _‘stay calm’._

Maybe Clint still would’ve swung at the guy, even if he didn’t believe in hitting dudes with glasses, and had a huge thing about doe-eyes; most likely would’ve decked the guy with his good arm and run like hell instead of killing him, bleeding like a stuck pig all the while, if it hadn’t been for his frantic mind finally catching up with the situation and realizing that he was—if only a little bit—overreacting. _(Hawkeye, you dummy.)_ This guy was _helping him_ —had to be. Clint didn’t think someone with that many freckles and eyes that fucking wide could be a bad guy. That just wasn’t how the world worked—bad guys had bushy mustaches and generally looked like they could take a punch. This guy looked scrawny enough for a good wind to blow him away.

It took a minute of coaxing on the guy’s part—who Clint would now deem as varying versions Mister Freckles—finally putting his hands on the archer when he lowered his curled fist and slumped his good shoulder out of its hunch.

A little embarrassed, a lot in pain, and, as the flush of terrified adrenaline left him, a whole lot bone-deep tired, Clint complied with the Freckle’s gingerly insistent hands on his arms _(either stronger than he seemed, or Clint was just a weak ass at the moment)_ , allowing himself to be pressed back to the cot, he pulled his legs back up so he could lay flat out, though he hated it, reminded him of drunk dagger target practice, where he was the target, and ‘play-fights’ where he was the ‘bad guy’. Though Mister Freckle seemed to know what he was doing, and didn’t look like he was going to stab and/or elbow-drop Clint in the stomach anytime soon, so he let that paranoia lie.

The smile that graced Mr. Freckles face was one of pure relief as Clint settled back onto the cot, and his hands fluttered about for a moment, little pale birds unsure of where to land, before clapping together, palms rubbing anxiously, gaze flickering up and down the length of Clint’s body, probably judging the damage Clint had just screwed himself over with. _(Well, at least his reaction would have made Coulson a little less disappointed.)_

As he looked Clint over, The Freckled Crusaders lips started moving again, and the archer felt kind of bad that he was just wasting his voice, _(because it was probably some adorable as all sam-hill voice that certainly didn’t need to go to waste)_ , so he lifted his right hand to tap at his ear, where his busted aid was sitting, snug and useless as a fat tic in a mutts fur. 

_No go, can’t hear you, please try again later._ Cell tower a la Clint was momentarily out of service; he flicked at the stupid plastic, adjusted the small nobs hidden behind his ear, even tugged at the wires connecting the two, trying to see if he could get whatever had come loose back into place, but he still heard nothing—maybe the world’s smallest _shhk_ of static, but that was about it.

For a second the wild Freckle-Bear seemed confused, mouth pulling down in a little moue of confusion, before his eyes widened even further in understanding and his mouth formed a small ‘o’. Nodding almost frantically for a second, brown curls bobbing atop his head, he spun on his heel, Clint following him with his eyes; his slim shoulders hunched forward, the line of his shoulders tense beneath the rumpled cloth of a purple button-up.

Sometimes Clint thought he was a decent spy—you know, he did spy-things, did spy talk, killed people before they even realized they were on a hit list; shit that made him feel like 007, with a little less class and a lot less coiffed hair. But then sometimes Clint was given the opportunity to use something to his advantage—say, a back to him—and _did nothing with it._ Maybe if he’d been thinking, he would have—he’d have scoped out potential weapons within his reach. He’d have mapped out every way he could possibly escape, whether it was climbing through the window or trying his luck with the beaded door. He’d have considered bribing this stranger to help smuggle him across the Himalayas, so he could get in contact with SHIELD. He might even have just asked to borrow that computer sitting useless on the desk Freckly-McGee was rifling across, to see if he could at least tell someone he wasn’t dead.

But Clint wasn’t nearly as all-amazing a spy as he liked to tell himself he was, so his thoughts scattered off on some other tangent, far, far away from what Coulson would have been thinking _(or any agent with two brain cells left in his skull to rub together)_.

His eyes went across that line of purple fabric, rumpled and loose on this guy’s thin frame, and all Clint could think was:

_Who the hell owns a purple button-up? Is that a thing? I’ve worn button-ups before—not a lot, mind you, ‘cause usually I’m more of a_ ‘Kill ‘em a mile away’ _kinda agent, and that doesn’t really get much need for any kind of dressin’ up—but I thought they only came in, like, white. And blue, and red, and yellow. And, like, every other colour of the rainbow. Except purple. I can’t think of a single time I’ve seen a purple button-up. Like, seriously, what the hell is with this dude?_

As Clint had this small inner monologuing session about purple shirts and the fact that he suddenly couldn’t remember having seen one _(he had, plenty of times, but maybe not in that particular shade)_ , the man donning said purple shirt was scribbling quickly across a sheet of paper. He was done in just a moment, and grabbed the desk chair, dragging it with him as he came to rest at Clint’s side, plopping down and waving the paper in front of Clint’s eyes—effectively distracting him from going on another tangent about purple shirts or maybe an even _more_ important line of topic: _purple pants._

The paper itself was crumpled, and had things already written across it, almost too light for Clint to make out; letters, numbers, odd little shapes, all squashed together in a hurried, yet elegant script. It was such a foreign-looking conglomeration, that Clint was suddenly convinced Mister Freckles communicated with aliens on the side. _(With nothing but an eighth grade education to go by, it seemed completely logical to assume nuclear physics were an alien language, so don’t judge.)_ Across the letter that was obviously to freckle dude’s alien confidants, written in a large, careful, curling script was the following: _I’m a doctor. I’m here to help. Please don’t try and leave._

The be-freckled Doctor was nodding emphatically at the paper in his hands, as though to emphasize his point, before he pulled it back once more, scribbling something else hastily across it, propping the sheet on his knee as he did.

This time, when he held up the paper to Clint, it had only two words on it:

_Bruce Banner_

Clint was almost disappointed, putting a name to the speckled face—it meant he couldn’t just carry on referring to him as amazing nicknames, like Doctor Fluffy Freckle Bear, or something equally as inventive. He managed a half-grin for the doctor before he had the paper set carefully on his chest, pencil anchoring it down, and it turned into a confused frown.

Bruce was adjusting his glasses, carefully avoiding Clint’s eyes, as the agent took the paper and pencil in his good hand. Then he realized: _Hawkeye, you dummy, introductions work both ways._

Maybe he should have thought about giving a fake name when he took the paper, just in case. It probably would have been for the best, so if he needed to drag his lame ass out the door and limp away, he’d be impossible to find. But, again; shittiest spy to ever spy. 

All he could think was how fucking glad he was to have a paper to write on. Because he couldn’t speak, and that was just a pain in the ass, when someone didn’t know ASL.

Well, he said couldn’t—what he _really_ meant was that he refused to speak. It was a rule, a rule he’d had since day one, that he would not say a word while he couldn’t hear his own voice. It was a fear, a terrible fear that kept him mute as well as deaf, when he damn well knew he could speak just fine without his ears as a guide. He was terrified of losing his voice, a voice he had always been proud of—he was afraid to sound like the deaf man he’d met once, the man whose voice pitched too low, sounding guttural, syllables slammed together at awkward angles. He was afraid he’d _sound_ deaf, that people would _judge_ him on something as stupid as his disability. So he wouldn’t speak unless he could hear his own voice, just to be damn sure it didn’t do anything awful while he wasn’t paying attention, and he was perfectly fine with that.

So Clint gladly took that paper and pencil, using the back of his bandaged hand to prop the sheet up, and he scrawled his name quickly beneath the doctors in his own sloppy military script, tongue stuck out between his teeth as he concentrated, because this was a very important task. Introductions and first impressions were everything.

The doctor was giving Clint a puzzled look before the archer actually held out the paper, his half-smile pulling into a full blown grin as he watched those brown eyes go from confused, to really confused, and then, finally, to amusement, his lips quivering up into a small smile, eyes crinkled about the edges. Clint had _no_ idea why he seemed so amused; he’d just signed his name like he would for anyone else, with as much added masculinity he could cram into something as small as his name. Coulson had always commended him on his signature, too.

_♥♥♥~Clint Barton~♥♥♥_ was a very manly way to sign your name, and never let anyone convince you otherwise.

When it seemed the doctor was at a complete loss, just staring at the bedridden archer like the slightly amusing side-show he was _(Clint had that effect on people; his humor was just too advanced for their feeble minds)_ , the archers grin widened and he held out his good hand, eyes glinting in the half light.

For a full minute those wide-eyes blinked and stared at Clint’s hand like it was some sort of alien, coming to eat his brains or some shit. Like he didn’t shake hands with people, or something, which seemed likely, seeing where he lived and how eccentric his entire life looked, from Clint’s point of view, at least—but still, it wasn’t like Clint was trying to make out with him. It was a handshake.

He did, eventually, catch on to what was happening, though.

Careful, so careful, those slim fingers reached out, and Clint was forced to go the extra mile, actually grabbing his hand and giving it a quick, firm shake. The doctor’s hand was loose on his wrist, as though he thought moving, or even gripping back, might hurt Clint. Which the archer thought was odd, but he left it be when the doctor quickly withdrew his hand, sitting back in his chair and rubbing his fingers in unconscious circles across the front of his shirt. Maybe he had a thing about germs—Clint didn’t feel the cleanest, so it seemed a sensible assumption.

The doctor looked uncomfortable in the moments that followed. Maybe it was an awkward silence that followed—maybe it wasn’t. Clint couldn’t tell—he was deaf. So what might have felt awkward for the doctor, who fidgeted and adjusted his glasses like this was the first time he’d actually sat down and interacted with someone in years, it was just a calm little lull for Clint, who adjusted himself on his cot, blinking wearily, eyes already growing heavy, though he knew he must have been half-asleep for days, and couldn’t have been awake for very long. That’s what he got for trying to kill and/or maim someone as soon as he woke up from his own attempted murder.

He cracked a long, silent yawn, bruises on his face twinging as he did, before he rubbed his eyes with his good hand. When he’d finished, he peeked out from behind his hands to find a curious doctor leaning forward in his chair, paper held out with one scribbled word: _Sleep?_

He debated in his head a moment—did he really trust this guy enough, this stranger he knew absolutely nothing about, trust him enough to willfully fall asleep in his presence? Was he that horrible of a SHIELD agent, or that stupid of a person in general, that he’d fall right the hell asleep without even figuring out what was actually wrong with him, or how this guy had found him?

Well, the simple answer was: Yes, Clint was tired, bleeding, and bruised, and he was going to close his eyes and get some fucking shut eye. The more complicated answer was: Yes, but he wasn’t stupid, he didn’t trust the friendly doctor, because no one should trust anyone under circumstances like these, but like hell he could actually do anything else about it. Screw up his shoulder even more by trying to fight his way past this guy and—then what? He didn’t have his weapons, wherever the hell they’d been left _(Hawkeye, you dummy, where’s your bow?)_ and he didn’t have anything that could help him out right now.

So, yeah, he nodded, cracking another yawn and waving the doctor off; he was going to deal with what he had, and worry about the other shit later. He’d sleep, and when he woke up, if he saw a way to get out, something that didn’t just drag him deeper into the thick of the bullshit, then he’d go for it.

Until then? He’d smile at the _goodnight_ written across that crumpled sheet of paper, nod his head in reply, and toss his good arm over his eyes to block out the light, block out the problems, and grab some fucking shut eye.

He’d deal with his problems tomorrow. For now, he would sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hides self* Please, tell me if you think it's dumb, I need the feedback, good or bad. I'm trying but this one got away from me, big time. Next chapter by next Monday, most likely.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first chapter of this small fanfiction, which I'm hoping to update at least once a week, if not more! I'm not sure how long it will be, but I am sure that I want to stuff it as full of angst and fluff as I physically can, so be aware of the coming pain and cute I'm hoping to supply!


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